The Independent Redistricting Commission was crafted to give the power to draw political maps to an appointed panel, free from political shackles. But now months behind the pace set by the previous IRC, there is a very real possibility that the job may fall to a panel of federal judges.

Following several hours of interviews last Friday, Arizona’s Independent Redistricting Commission will meet today to review mapping consultant applicants and select just one to help them begin to redraw Arizona’s political lines.

Some of the U.S. Census Bureau's 2010 Census data poses a puzzle. The Bureau found far fewer people in many major cities than its own estimates had found a year earlier. Now the Census Bureau and cities are debating which numbers are closer to the truth. No one knows for sure — and no one may ever know for sure.

Although all five members of Arizona’s Independent Redistricting Commission have said they're either aware of, or had logged into, the online mapping software that was released to the public recently by the Arizona Competitive Districts Coalition, which has a stated goal of increasing the number of “competitive districts,” they don't all agree about how it will be used.

Although the five-person panel has been fully constituted since early March, Arizona’s Independent Redistricting Commission will only be ready to begin their work recasting Arizona’s political districts once they’ve finished making key staff hires.

And given the pace the commission is moving toward being fully staffed, it could be early- to mid-June before commissioners begin to consider the new district lines.

Arizona’s Independent Redistricting Commission system was established in 2000 to bring transparency and accountability to what had traditionally been a behind-closed-doors process, and to eliminate the incentive to protect incumbent lawmakers’ election odds using creative line drawing.

Now, two former state lawmakers are spearheading a campaign that uses online software to up the ante.